According to statistics, 70% of all people on the planet are infected with various parasites. Of them infected from domestic animals - about half. And this is only official data. Needless to say, the "unofficial" cases of infection are many times greater. More often than not, pet favorites reward their owners with a tapeworm. In second place - parasitic disease echinococcosis.
What does it mean to become infected with echinococcus?
Echinococcosis is parasitism, which in the human body is determined by the penetration and development in various organs of the larvae of the tapeworm of the dog. The human and some herbivores are the intermediate and final hosts of this parasite falling into our body from the dog.
Tapeworm - a ribbon-like worm only a few millimeters long, consists of 3-4 segments, each of which contains from 400 to 800 eggs with worms. After their ripening, they leave the body of the dog along with its feces, thereby polluting the environment (soil, fruits and vegetables, even some moving objects). These eggs are relatively stable and surviving in the environment, and neither rain nor high or low temperatures can lead to their death. In their distribution, a huge role is played by flies through which they fall for food, for the body and even for the sand where children play. You can catch, even just resting in nature, if flies fly around.
How does a person get infected?
A person becomes infected not only from fruits and vegetables, on which eggs are, but also with direct or indirect connection with the infected pet (caresses, touches, kisses). Oral eggs, which are usually invisible to the naked eye, turn into larvae in the intestine, thus having the ability to penetrate blood vessels, and from there through the blood to reach the liver, lungs and other organs. These larvae grow rapidly, become the cause of the development of echinococcal cysts, which are then identified with the appearance of external symptoms. These cysts develop most often in the liver (about 75% of cases), the lungs (20%), less often in the kidneys, muscles, spleen and other internal organs.
What are the most likely vectors of the infection?
Most often these are stray dogs that feed on contaminated and contaminated foods. The dog in the future can be an active source of infection for 2-3 years. Moreover, this disease in her will be asymptomatic and without much harm to herself. But others will have a hard time.
What are the most common symptoms of echinococcosis?
In many cases, the initial symptoms are completely insignificant and invisible. Cysts can be generally found accidentally, for example. When passing a fluorography or x-ray. However, the symptoms depend on the localization of the organ cysts. When the cysts are very large and are in the lungs, there is a cough, stitching pain in the chest and in the region of the liver. Externally, the symptoms are similar to pneumonia or bronchitis. Echinococcosis in the liver is manifested as a sign of a slowly growing tumor, so that changing the size and shape of the liver can lead to a feeling of heaviness and pressure in the lower right hypochondrium. In this case complications can lead to the development of jaundice.
Are infected people dangerous for other people?
It should be noted that the owners of dogs infected with echinococcus parasites do not pose a threat to the population, as the infection can not be infected from person to person. This is very dangerous only for the owner, because echinococcosis is a very serious disease, the elimination of which is very difficult, because the worm lays eggs in surrounding tissues. Timely treatment, as a rule, is carried out by removing a part of the organ, inside which there is a focus of parasites. But in many cases this does not give a complete cure, because if at least one larva remains in the person - the parasites can breed again.
What measures can we take?
The first and most important thing is personal hygiene and thorough washing of vegetables and fruits before consumption. After communicating with the dog, you should immediately wash your hands, and this you need to teach your children. The dog should not eat raw meat from a dubious source - it can be infected with a tapeworm. Feed specially designed for pets can not guarantee safety. Your dog can still get infected, but it's still preferable to feeding than horrible.
It is necessary to conduct deworming of the dog according to the schedule, periodically show it to the veterinarian, and prevent fleas from multiplying on it. It is the fleas that are known to carry serious diseases that can be especially dangerous for people. With hypersensitivity, a person can develop blisters or papular rash, which is accompanied by severe itching and general reactions - malaise, nervousness and even insomnia. Experts believe that almost all dogs living in apartments, at least once in their lives, were carriers of fleas, which are sometimes invisible to humans and are identified only by the dog's droppings (feces analysis).
Cats - carriers of toxoplasmosis
Based on the fact that cats are the most clean animals, many of their owners decide to abandon preventive veterinary examinations. Statistics show that 90% of domestic cats have never visited a veterinarian. But cats can also be carriers of serious diseases that pose a threat to human health. One of such wide parasitic diseases is toxoplasmosis. A disease that occurs unnoticeably and proceeds gently at an early stage, which is very dangerous afterwards. The most important danger is for pregnant women. During the first 3-6 months of pregnancy a child in the womb of a mother infected with toxoplasmosis may begin to develop incorrectly or even die. At best, the baby is born with congenital toxoplasmosis.
The problem is that the pathogens of this disease are extremely small in size. Intruding inside the cells, they form cysts that contain hundreds of individual parasites. Cats are the main source, a constant supply of infection, so they can infect humans and other animals through their excrement for life. It should be noted that eating cats raw or poorly cooked meat significantly increases the risk of infection. In the United States, for example, 22.5% of people over the age of 12 and 15% of women of reproductive age are infected with toxoplasmosis.
The damage from parasites, applied to the human body, affects many organs, but most often affects the brain and the inner wall of the eye. Congenital toxoplasmosis causes neonatal inflammation of the brain and meninges, fever, enlarged spleen and liver, blindness, jaundice and many other serious symptoms. They can be found in the first months of life or at a later stage in the development of the child.
Acquired toxoplasmosis in most cases occurs imperceptibly, but rarely there is a fever, muscle pain, an increase in lymph nodes, myocarditis, etc ..
Remember: to be faithful friends of our pets a lot is not necessary - it is important only to comply with high standards of hygiene and not miss regular visits to the veterinarian. And do not constantly think about what worms you can get - a cat or a dog should be a man in joy. With them you need to communicate, you need to love them, just do it wisely and without extremes.